Category: Live performance

Ya-Ting Liou – delight and triumph amid near-empty spaces

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace presents PIANO +
A week of concerts in support of the proposed new Welcome Centre

Concert No.5 – Ya-Ting Liou (piano)

BEETHOVEN – 6 Bagatelles Op.126
BERG – Piano Sonata Op.1
LISZT – Années de Pèlerinage – Première année: Suisse

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Saturday 16th November 2013

I had thought at first that last night’s poor attendance at pianist Melanie Lina’s St.Andrew’s recital was the fault of a kind of “Friday night” syndrome. As it transpired, I had singled out Friday most unfairly, because this evening (Saturday) less than half last night’s already meagre number turned out to hear pianist Ya-Ting Liou. It’s true that neither of  the pianists were “names” to conjure with as far as the public was concerned, but each of their programmes as listed spoke volumes in terms of interest and musical pleasure.

Fortunately for those of us who had gone to these concerts, each of the pianists seemed completely unfazed by the lack of audience numbers, assuring we who were there that the important thing was to be able to play, and that SOMEBODY was there to listen. And judging by the programme that Ya-Ting Liou had put together this evening, it was obvious that here was potentially a most interesting and questing spirit wanting to play for us.

Taiwanese-born Ya-Ting Liou came to New Zealand in 2009 to live, and has since concertized both as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the country. I’ve seen and heard her play only once before, in a 2011 Wellington concert with her husband Blas Gonzales, as part of a duo called the “Pangea Piano Project”, playing works by New Zealand composers (https://middle-c.org/2011/05/pangea-piano-project-the-art-of/). On that occasion I was impressed by her artistry, but my appreciation was somewhat decentralized both by the excellence of her musical partnership, and the interest generated by the home-grown repertoire. In short, I wasn’t really prepared for the overwhelming experience of encountering her work as a recitalist.

And what music she offered! – Beethoven’s final set of Bagatelles for piano, the richly-wrought Op.1 Sonata by Berg, and Liszt’s first youthful Year of Pilgrimage, inspired by Switzerland. Each of these works tends to be talked about more than played, though interestingly enough it was the third occasion I’d heard the Berg Sonata in concert in relatively recent times. The Beethoven however, took me all the way back to my first and only experience of Alfred Brendel playing “live”, in Wellington in 1975, while Liszt’s Première année I’d never before heard in recital complete (I fancy there may have been a Vallée d’Obermann or two at some stage along the way…..).

The first Beethoven Bagatelle elicited warm, rich sounds from player and instrument, but without smoothing over the piece’s rhythmic and melodic angularities – and to follow, what a contrast Liou got with the impulsiveness of the following allegro! Her engagement with the music was at all times apparent, demonstrating a spontaneity and volatility surprisingly at odds with her diminutive appearance and seemingly tiny hands! After a richly contemplative Andante she again released great surges of energy for the rumbustious Presto, in full command of the dynamic contrasts in the music, and creating a gorgeous liquid flow throughout the “trio” section, one whose gossamer finish had a slightly “other-worldly” quality.

As for the final Bagatelle’s remarkable fusion of grand serenity and dismissive volatility (one commentator described the explosions of energy which introduce and dismiss the piece as “the composer delivering to his instrument a kick down the stairs”), Liou brought out the kinship of the music’s visionary explorations with the slow movement of the Hammerklavier, allowing free play between both immediacies and the mysteries of the sounds – at the end, only a slight mis-hit took away some of the finality of the payoff that its composer perhaps intended.

What to make of Alban Berg’s enigmatic one-movement piano sonata? Berg was simply thinking along the lines of Debussy who famously remarked that “after Beethoven, sonata form was no longer valid for composition”. Here, after a brief exposition, the music takes its cue from the piece’s opening phrase, and develops accordingly and organically.

Interestingly enough, some of Berg’s sequential passages reminded me of Rachmaninov’s keyboard writing in his First Sonata – what’s common to both, I feel, is the emotional drive at the bottom of the sequences, however much in thrall each composer is to a prevalent ideology of composition. Ya-Ting Liou expressed this yearning and striving towards these “remote consonances” with real feeling, as wholeheartedly as she delineated the piece’s haunting downward intervals towards even more remote regions. She brought to life the rhapsodic surface of the music throughout, while keeping the underlying strands of the music’s journeyings unbroken.

In the minds of many people, Franz Liszt’s fame is based upon his flashy, virtuoso instrumental pieces, and the greatly exaggerated tales of his “frequent” amours (which, if true, would have left him precious little time for his better-documented activities and achievements). He was, of course, reputed to be the greatest pianist of his age, and a good deal of his music reflects that extraordinary keyboard facility. However at least as much again shows the composer in a more serious and purposeful mood, and many of these less overtly spectacular works have, until recent times, been seriously neglected, known only to scholars and connoisseurs.

Perhaps it would be unfair to class Liszt’s three collections of music inspired by his travels – he called them Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) – as neglected in toto, because certain pieces from each of the three volumes have been regularly featured in pianist’s recital programs. From the opening Swiss Year comes Vallée d’Obermann, and from the Italian (Second) Year there are the Petrarch Sonnets and the concise but powerful Dante Sonata. Finally, from the Third Year collection there’s the justly famous Les jeux d’eaux a la Villa d’Este (The fountains of the Villa d’Este). However, performances of any of the books as complete entities have, until recent times, been rare.

Most welcome, then, was Ya-Ting Liou’s presentation of the first of these collections, the Première année: Suisse. Liszt and his mistress Marie d”Agoult travelled extensively in Switzerland during the 1830s, the composer recording his reflections in a collection of pieces titled Album d’un voyageur, published in 1842. He later revised the cycle of pieces, adding two further ones and rechristening the collection Première année: Suisse (“First Year: Switzerland”) republishing the set in 1855.

If I go on to describe Liou’s performances in detail it will take people longer to read the review than it would to listen to a recording of the cycle! – tempted as I am by the impact of witnessing her achievement, by the totality of her conception, the brilliance of her playing and her conveyance of a great love for and understanding of the music, I’ll reluctantly content myself with a few brief descriptions of certain “moments”, hoping that readers will glean from these something of my excitement and thankfulness at “being there”.

Grand, rich chordings opened the first piece Chapelle de Giuillaume Tell, giving the music eons of resonance and space – bold, colorful playing! – I liked the touch of “diavolo” in places, with mischievous and sometimes menacing snake-slithers of sound, one that gave way to the grandest, most orchestral of conceptions of the music, which we revelled in like great lords and ladies! From this, the change to the tranquil waters of the Lake Wallenstadt was almost surreal, producing a magical effect, the playing “embracing” the music’s textures and colours, and painting a “landscape of emotion”.

The next piece sounded like Liszt’s homage to Beethoven via the latter’s “Pastoral” Sonata, while the lively and volatile Au bord dune source seemed to gather both momentum and girth to the point where the music became a rushing torrent – very “organic” thinking by the pianist, in view of the onslaught of the following Orage, with its terrific physical attack and ferocious, incisive aspect. As with Melanie Lina’s playing of Ravel’s Alborado the previous evening, I was astonished at the incredible “glint” in the pianist’s tones, and wondered if that was helped by what appeared to be Liou’s sparing use of the sustaining pedal – nothing, no sound, colour or texture, was indefinite or muddled, the pianist’s fingers doing all or most of the work so brilliantly.

Vallée d’Obermann was next, a veritable tone-poem in itself, and a touchstone of romanticism in music. Liou’s performance had a positively psycho-analytical ring, the music delving into the Byronic character’s growing crisis of confidence and faith, and overwhelmingly coming to terms with the world at the end, amid Musorgsky-like sonorities, with the traveller having the last word when nearly all was said and done. Much-needed relief from these full-on outpourings was provided by the Grieg-like delicacies of the following Èglogue, Liou’s wide-ranging capabilities of touch producing all kinds of easeful sonorities here.

How affecting, then, was Le mal du pays, its emotion fetched up from the depths and striking at the heart of the weary and comfortless traveller. In Ya-Ting Liou’s hands the feelings grew from out of the sounds, remembrances of home overlaid by world-weariness and anxiety, and seeking some kind of equilibrium and solace in the rich ambient chords which quietly closed the work. More celebratory and ritualistic was the final Les cloches de Genève, Liou’s seemingly boundless tonal resources at the music’s service whole-heartedly, making for a resounding and celebratory conclusion to the journey.

So, by dint of the playing on both of these occasions at St.Andrew’s, our initial dismay seemed to morph into delight!  Very great honour is due to both pianists on all counts – but we Wellingtonians will have to look to our laurels in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melanie Lina – great playing reaching all too few ears at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace presents PIANO +
A week of concerts in support of the proposed new Welcome Centre

Concert No.4 – Melanie Lina (piano)

SCARLATTI – Sonatas: E major K.380 / D Major K.29
BEETHOVEN – Sonata in E-flat Op.81a “Les Adieux”
PSATHAS – Waiting for the Aeroplane
BRITTEN – “Early Morning Bathe” / “Sailing” (from “Holiday Diary” Op.5)
ALBENIZ – El Puerto / Cordoba
RAVEL – Alborado del gracioso (from “Miroirs”)
CHOPIN – Waltzes: E Major (Op.Posth.) / A-flat Major Op.42 / Piano Sonata in B Minor Op.58

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Friday, 15th November 2013

How unfortunate that, in the wake of Michael Houstoun’s extended weekend of Beethoven Sonata performances at the MFC, which was followed immediately by this present Piano+ series at St.Andrew’s in Wellington, the capital’s music-going public seemed to have “run out of steam” after three of the five nights of concerts.

It was probably a case of event overload, but each of the two remaining occasions, both of them notable piano recitals, were so poorly attended as to induce a degree of actual embarrassment on the part of those who were there. It left me with the not wholly comfortable feeling that the city’s reputation as an arts and cultural centre (which we Wellingtonians all keenly look to espouse) might not be such a “given” as presumed.

Whatever the case, Shakespeare’s immortal lines from Henry V “And gentlemen of England now abed…….”  applied in spadesful to both of these concerts, as the few who attended heartily agreed (we all readily bonded as a group on each of the evenings under these conditions!). There were chalk-and-cheese differences as regards repertoire, though each had a definite link with the aforementioned Houstoun/Beethoven series concluded a few days previously – Melanie Lina’s recital featured the composer’s “Les Adieux” Sonata, while Taiwanese-born pianist Ya-Ting Liou gave us the Op.126 set of Bagatelles the following evening.

The “Les Adieux” Sonata was given by Melanie Lina as part of a first half whose general theme expressed aspects of human dislocation/relocation in places away from homelands, both temporary and lifelong. So, along with Beethoven we had music by (Italian-born but Spanish-domiciled) Domenico Scarlatti, the much-travelled Catalan-born Isaac Albeniz, and the Basque-born Maurice Ravel, whose lifelong affair with Spain is well documented in his works.

Bringing the idea “closer to home” for listeners was John Psathas’s evocative Waiting for the Aeroplane, along with excerpts from Benjamin Britten’s rarely-played but highly entertaining Holiday Diary.  An all-Chopin second half seemed in accord with the dislocation/relocation theme, though the works presented here were more cosmopolitan than nationalistic in outlook.

I felt, perhaps, that the program was over-generous – a pianist friend with whom I attended the concert also thought the recital too long by a couple of items, though remarking that she herself had been “guilty” of a similar largesse of performing spirit in her younger concertizing days. Just one of the Albeniz/Ravel “Spanish” works would, I think, have sufficed, providing sufficient contrast with the rest, and leaving us pleasantly hungry for more…..

Beginning the recital, Melanie Lina gave us Scarlatti – two beautifully-crafted Baroque sonatas here exquisitely rendered by the pianist on a modern concert grand. Throughout the opening E Major (K.380) I loved Lina’s “imaging” – that sense of fantasy with which she so readily infused the music, her tempi and phrasing allowing the music to blossom and live within each bar. I could hear throughout the “twang” of the guitar resonating within a vividly-wrought ambience, one infused with her rich command of keyboard colour.  She revelled also in the more extrovert D Major (K.29), the great toccata-like whirls of sound at the opening conjuring up something very pictorial and dramatic, followed by fingerwork which propelled the music’s thrust with Horowitz-like crystalline clarity.

The pianist very properly alerted us to the correlation between the German word “Lebe-wohl” and the opening of Beethoven’s popularly-styled “Les Adieux” Sonata – the heartfelt three-note motif led to a full-blooded exposition of grief at a friend’s departure, both vigorous and reflective (both elements superbly delivered by Lina – some brilliant toccata-like chording in places, as well as a brief development hiatus which she quickly recovered from), while at the movement’s conclusion the farewell motif (also evoking a posthorn-like ambience) reinforced the sense of loss most vividly.

After this I wanted a shade more stillness from the second movement, a more “stricken” feeling – though Beethoven writes “andante”, he intensifies the feeling with “expressivo” – but Lina’s playing I thought a shade dry-eyed, perhaps registering the impatience of one who awaits the return of a friend more than the sorrow of that person’s absence. Theoretically, a classicist would approve of her structural organization of the whole, whereas a romantic might bemoan the lessening of feeling and atmosphere.

The finale very properly burst upon us with a mighty flourish, and though the pianist didn’t always carry a kind of underlying momentum across some of the sequences there were some thrilling moments. I particularly relished Lina’s repeated right-hand upward triple-flourishes (again, crystalline fingerwork) and, following the reprise of the opening, the hair-raising juxtaposition of left-hand octaves and right-hand dancings which when done, as here, with confidence and élan, produced an exhilaration of physical excitement! And though it was a case of thrills and spills at another point, the pianist prevailed in the face of some Haydnesque “dead-ends” and wrestled back the musical argument, to the great relief of all concerned.

A different kind of ambience informed John Psathas’ bitter-sweet Waiting for the Aeroplane, by turns nostalgic, visionary and jazzy, and here evoked with great surety. It made the perfect foil for two movements from a work I didn’t know, Britten’s piano suite Holiday Diary, written in 1934 and dedicated to his piano teacher, Arthur Benjamin. The first piece, entitled “Early Morning Bathe” nicely delineated the energies required to set the process in motion, the angularities of the opening giving way to the swimmer’s strokes and the water’s undulations.Had I not known the music’s title I would have plumped for a horse-ride of some description, complete with the feel of the wind on the rider’s face!

In the second piece, “Sailing” the playing caught a warmly sostenuto singing mood over gently shifting chords, the line’s water-mark shifting the sonorities to brighter realms in places, when suddenly the music energized and danced in a quasi-Musorgsky mood, the phrases spiky and fragmentary. Then, as quickly, the opening mood returned, this time with a deep tolling bass line underpinning the lyricism – a gorgeous performance of some lovely music.

As for the three “Spanish” pieces, I enjoyed most of all Melanie Lina’s astounding playing of Ravel’s Alborado del gracioso – when she began, I thought her tempo was too fast and that everything would degenerate into a garble of smudged notes – but she made it work with such tremendous zest, buoyancy and clarity, the repeated notes both clear and resonant, and the flourishes full-bodied and properly theatrical. Then, the recitative took us into the ambience’s heart, with pliant yet focused rhythmic impulses, the storyteller’s art coming to the fore, here – Lina was able to throw off the flourishes with such amazing “glint” while still making the melodies sing, spreading the chords as if she was strumming a giant guitar, and launching into the dance-rhythm of the opening once again with exquisite timing – those glissandi completed their mesmeric spell and helped whirl our sensibilities into paroxysms of delight at the end.

Neither of the Albeniz pieces was quite on this exalted level – El Puerto was given plenty of zest and physicality, and Lina did as well as any I’ve heard to keep the piece coherent and varied amid the composer’s veritable torrent of notes. And Cordoba started well, the pianist capturing during the introductory bars the ambivalence of the Spanish night, with its luminosity and fragrance set against darker rituals of purpose, but later, I thought relinquishing too much of the depth and mystery in rhythms which never really dug in – for me, a bit too picture-postcard a response to this soulful music.

The remained of the program was given over to Chopin – firstly, two waltzes stylishly and charmingly performed, the first the Op.Posth. E Major beautifully gauged as regards an appropriate mix of strength and poetry, and the second, the Op. 42 A-flat “Grand Waltz” variously whirling us around the ballroom and encouraging us to snap our heels to attention with the music’s engaging “strut” – all delightful and invigorating stuff.

Then came the “grand finale” – the Op.58 B Minor Sonata – a difficult assignment for any pianist, but especially at the conclusion of a demanding program. Despite some “crowding in” of detail in places, making for a slightly rushed and breathless intermittent effect, I thought Lina’s delivery of the first movement of the work very fine, wanting only in some light and shade here and there, which would have given Chopin’s classically-oriented piano writing a touch more air and space. And I admired her gossamer delivery of the Scherzo’s fleet-fingered opening, and the on-going “tingling” effect of the intermezzo-like passages which followed, more agitato in places than I expected, but nevertheless effective.

But it was the slow movement which truly captured my imagination, here – after emphatically delivering the opening’s dramatic and rhetorical gesture, Lina brought both of the movement’s contrasting lyrical episodes to warm-hearted fruition, with whole vistas of contrasting feeling and colour deftly applied to a poised, easeful change from B major to E Major. I thought the pianist’s tone was”centered” in a way that focused sensibilities on the here-and-now qualities of the music’s emotion – a treasurable sense of something unique to the moment that would never be recaptured.

Impressive, too, in some ways was Lina’s playing of the turbulent finale – except that I thought in places she pushed the “presto” so fiercely that the “ma non tanto” dropped off!  I couldn’t help feeling in her phrasing and articulation a degree of anxiety driving the music ever onwards – as though she didn’t trust the music’s own in-built momentum – which gave the performance as much a sense of breathlessness as of motivation and purpose. I found it all a bit unsettling – perhaps in accord with its composer’s state of mind at the time.

However, these few points aside, this was a splendid and enjoyable recital by a pianist whose musical and communicative skills deserved oceans more than our few hands and voices could give her. I do hope she gives Wellington another chance, before too long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A partnership going places – Inbal Megiddo and Jian Liu

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St. Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington, presents
Piano Plus – A Week of Concerts

Beethoven: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 4 in C major, Op.102, no.1
Ross Harris: ‘Sunt lacrimae rerum’
Manuel de Falla: Suite Populaire Espagnole, arr. Maurice Marechal
Serge Rachmaninoff: Melody in E from Morceaux de fantaisies, Op.3 No.3
Rossini-Castelnuovo Tedesco, arr. Piatigorsky: Figaro from “The Barber of Seville”

Jian Liu, piano
Inbal Megiddo, cello

Wednesday 13 November

Wellington music lovers are very much the beneficiaries of the recent appointments of artists Inbal Megiddo and Jian Liu to teaching positions at the New Zealand School of Music. Each is an exceptional musician and instrumentalist, and this varied programme offered an opportunity to share their command of a wide range of musical and national styles.

The two movements of Beethoven’s sonata punctuate deeply expressive slow periods with vigorous Allegri interventions. In the poetic Andante and Adagio sections the cello had a wonderfully rich, sweet tone and beautiful phrasing, supported most sympathetically by the piano. The contrasting Allegri  were wonderfully spirited and dramatic, and fully exploited the wide dynamic range of the score. But during impassioned forte periods there were, unfortunately, times when the piano was simply too loud, obscuring the equally important cello role. The use of the long, rather than short stick on the concert grand piano made this an almost predictable hazard, but for most of the time Jian Liu kept the situation firmly under control.

Ross Harris’s brief ‘Sunt lacrimae rerum’ was composed for Inbal and Jian in 2013. Its title derives from Aenaes’ lament on the Trojan War “There are tears in things, and mortality touches the mind”. The outer parts of the score are a moving meditation on the frailty of human existence, with spare, atonal idioms that proved surprisingly effective in expressing this musical stream of consciousness. They encompass a central scherzo-like section of agitated, angry sentiment that was, however, less convincing. But that was certainly not the case in the arresting pianissimo harmonics from the cello that closed this affecting work, beautifully realised by the duo.

Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole comprises six movements based on popular songs from all over Spain. They alternate moods of vigorous, spirited excitement, at times almost wild, with sombre meditative tunes like the central Nana lullaby with its Moorish overtones in the cadences. The final Polo is full of the anger and resentment of the scorned lover, and the full range of all these contrasting sentiments was most convincingly explored by the duo.

The tiny Rachmaninoff Morceau  is a beautiful Melody where the cellist gave full voice to her wonderful, rich cantabile and expressive phrasing, and was most sympathetically supported by the piano.

The final arrangement of Rossini’s Figaro aria from “The Barber of Seville” was an unashamed show-off piece for the cellist. While not particularly successful as a piece of music, as an astute act of programming it ended the recital with great enthusiasm and gusto at a breathless gallop, and the audience was rightly thrilled.

 

Beethoven’s and Michael Houstoun’s “Les Adieux” – for now…….

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Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
Michael Houstoun – Beethoven reCYCLE 2013
Programme Seven “Les Adieux”

BEETHOVEN – Sonata in F minor, Op 2 No 1 / Sonata in G, Op 79
Sonata in E flat, Op 81a ‘Les Adieux’
Interval
Sonata in E minor, Op 90   / Sonata in C minor, Op 111

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Michael Fowler Centre,Wellington

Monday 11th November 2013

This was the final concert in Michael Houstoun’s Beethoven reCYCLE 2013 project, which has encompassed the composer’s entire output of 32 piano sonatas, presented in forty concerts, spread across ten centres. The atmosphere of eager anticipation in the Fowler Centre was almost palpable from an audience of some 600 listeners who were clearly devotees not only of Beethoven, but of the artist too.

The concert opened with the first published piano sonata and ended with the final one, written nearly 30 years later. Despite being an early opus, the F minor work is nevertheless full of the drama, beauty, and individualism that we associate with Beethoven’s mature output, and he was indeed already a highly successful pianist and composer in Vienna when he wrote it. Michael Houstoun’s reading was fresh and vigorous, and immediately engaged the audience for the journey through this ambitious programme.

The G major work is a captivating gem, its three brief movements more in the scale of a sonatina than sonata. Houstoun fashioned a wonderful balance between the poetic central Andante and its encompassing outer movements, in an interpretation that offered a lightness and transparency to the ear.

The E flat sonata “Les Adieux” was dedicated to a friend and pupil of Beethoven’s, the Archduke Rudolph. When this patron left Vienna in 1809 to avoid the French advance and bombardment, Beethoven wrote this very personal work with movements entitled The Farewell, The Absence, and The Return. No other Beethoven sonata has an explicit programme like this, and the work has a sense of acute personal involvement, intimately and richly expressed. Houstoun embraced this with moving artistry, particularly in the central Andante expressivo.

The E minor sonata, with only two movements, is reputedly a love story for Count Moritz Lichnowsky, to whom it is dedicated. He had successfully wooed an opera singer, and wedding bells were in the offing, but the first movement seems to capture the moods of  early courtship – the passion, hopes, doubts, even despair, of initial discovery and tentative advancement…….. Conversely, the second movement conveys a sense of profound relief, and the serenity of a rich, mutual understanding finally established.  Houstoun explored all these aspects with a sensitivity that conveyed a particularly special and personal affinity with this work.

The C minor sonata Opus 111 sits within the works usually labelled “late Beethoven”, yet to me it is much more immediately engaging and accessible than, say, some of the late string quartets. The first of its two movements opens with a Maestoso section that then moves into Allegro con brio ed appassionato. The following Arietta is marked Adagio molto semplice e cantabile, and it finally fades away with a beautifully crafted coda resolution. Houstoun’s artistry captured every mood, and conveyed throughout a telling sense of profound fulfilment– as though aligning a deep satisfaction derived from the mammoth reCYCLE undertaking with similar sentiments encapsulated as Beethoven penned his final sonata work.

It seems churlish to harbour even a single reservation about this wonderful concert, but there were a few things I would have liked to hear done differently. Throughout these sonatas there are the characteristic extended periods of high speed, sometimes frenetic, finger passagework, often at a forte dynamic, which Houstoun presents in unbroken sweeps of uniform sound. My preference is for a much more rigorous rhythmic articulation of individual figures and motifs within these passages – which can enable the listener to hang onto the phrasing structure while never losing sight of the overall architecture which always underpins them. Also, these works offer an incredible dynamic range, and I would have appreciated more exploration of the pianissimo region, which the Steinway used here has well within its capacity.

But perhaps the single element I most missed was silence – encapsulated in Debussy’s telling comment “Music is the silence between the notes.” After each statement of a new phrase or subject I craved that infinitesimal spacing that enhances absorption by the senses. And even more so between movements, where a moment’s breath would enable the listener to comprehend fully the artistry of Houstoun’s playing just past, before embarking with him on his journey forward.

Houstoun’s extraordinary achievement and musicianship in presenting the entire reCYCLE project was acknowledged with huge appreciation by a unanimous standing ovation at the end of the concert, where he stood showered in clouds of glittering ticker tape spewed from two confetti cannons overhead, and was presented with a gigantic rich red bouquet. It was a brilliant and memorable moment in Wellington’s music making scene, and an inspired way to celebrate an extraordinary partnership between the artist, the supporters, and Chamber Music New Zealand.

Bravo all!

 

 

 

“Un spectacle fantastique” from orchestra and fireworks

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New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
“Fireworks and Fantasy”

Britten     The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, Op.23
Berlioz     Symphonie Fantastique Op.14

Piano : Plamena Mangova
Conductor : Julian Kuerti

Michael Fowler Centre,

9th November 2013

Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra received its first performance in 1946, when the LSO under Sargent also performed it on film for distribution to British schools. It became one of the best known British works of the C20th, and is certainly one of Britten’s most accessible and appealing compositions. It is based on a resounding theme from Purcell’s incidental music for the play Abdelazer, which Britten used as the basis for a fascinating set of variations. Conductor Kuerti and the entire orchestra launched into the imposing opening statement of the theme with an enthusiasm and breadth that immediately captured the audience, followed by each instrumental section in turn adding fresh richness and colour. The subsequent variations explore an astonishing variety of instrumental mood, timbre and techniques, and each section or soloist took up the baton with great relish for the task. The writing showcased the outstanding skills and musicianship of the NZSO players, and the sheer fun they had playing this brilliantly inventive music was infectious. The closing fugue and final tutti statement of the Purcell theme was awesome and it had the audience bringing the house down.

Tchaikovsky’s first Piano Concerto Op.23 is another well loved work, and the choice of gifted Bulgarian pianist Plamena Mangova was an inspired one. She was in total technical command of the very demanding score, and her musicianship explored an astonishing range of dynamics, moods, and sensitivities in a way that drew the audience into the wonderful intricate conversations that Tchaikovsky creates between pianist and orchestra. Under Kuerti’s unobtrusive baton they together moved seamlessly from contemplative passages of exquisite delicacy to the most dramatic full-bodied tuttis. The climaxes were full of richness, warmth, and riveting bravura while never straying into the overblown or bombastic. The woodwind principals were again a standout feature of the performance.

The following interval was timed to allow patrons to flock out and watch the annual Guy Fawkes’ fireworks display provided by the City Council in the nearby arm of the harbour. Wellington turned on a breathlessly calm, balmy spring evening and crystal clear skies for the event, which fittingly endorsed the festive atmosphere of the music making. An opinion reported earlier in the Dominion Post was that Guy Fawkes celebrations are now outdated baggage from our colonial past, and that the fireworks display would much more appropriately mark some indigenous festival like matariki, the Maori New Year. Quite apart from the difficulty that matariki falls in the depths of winter, when low cloud, drizzle, and freezing southerlies are the norm, it is not clear to me why the pakeha settlers of Aotearoa are expected to truncate their historical references, while the Maori are not. Surely, in another millennium we, and our many local ethnic groups, will seem like a bunch of settlers that stumbled ashore on almost the same day…….

Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique occupied the second half of the concert. Subtitled An episode in the life of an Artist, it is grounded in Berlioz own romantic experience. An intriguing programmatic work, it charts over the course of five movements the angst of a young musician desperately in love with a woman who embodies all he idealises and longs for. His early dreams and passions, and the disturbing images of his beloved that haunt him, are explored by Berlioz in the two initial movements with exquisite artistry, using a recurring idée fixe. Kuerti elicited a wonderfully sympathetic interpretation from the orchestra and again, standout beauty from woodwind principals. The third movement exchanges between first oboe and cor anglais were profoundly moving and breathtakingly accomplished, and set the tone for the dark unravelling of the plot in the last two movements. The expanded brass and percussion came wonderfully into their own, capturing ominous and brutal moods alike with equal intensity, and enriching the power of the maniacal tutti conclusion. The full house was blown away and, undeterred by a long evening’s listening, brought the conductor back repeatedly to express their appreciation.

This programme might be labelled by some as unashamedly populist, but in my view there is every good reason to provide such a chance to enjoy some of the great classics. It is an effective and rewarding  way to showcase the full resources of this wonderful symphony orchestra that our taxes provide, and to enjoy the outstanding musicians we are privileged to hear in our own home town.

 

 

Schubert’s “Trout” engaging despite wayward balances

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Schubert: Quintet in A, Op.114 “The Trout”

Violin – Yid-ee Goh / Viola  –  Konstanze Artmann / Cello  – Jane Young
Bass   – Paul Altomari / Piano  – Rachel Thomson

St. Andrew’s on the Terrace

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Schubert’s Trout Quintet is not often heard live in Wellington, yet it would have to be one of the best loved works of classical chamber music. The good turnout for this concert reflected that, which would have been rewarding for the ensemble, who were highly polished and technically well in command of the score. The work was written by the young Schubert, aged only 22, as a thank you gift to the wealthy amateur cellist Sylvester Paumgartner, who sponsored weekly summer musical salons at Steyr in the Austrian Alps. Schubert had soon become the centre of attention there in the summer of 1819, and the work was composed after his return to Vienna.

The score exudes the carefree delight of friends gathered to make music in a relaxed salon environment, and St. Andrew’s offers Wellington a very sympathetic setting for such a situation.

The opening Allegro vivace is announced with a dramatic tutti chord, followed by the first subject beautifully set for the violin. The movement was not far advanced however, before the imbalance between the instruments started to prove profoundly frustrating. From the balcony where I sat, the violin and piano were heavily dominating, the viola and cello recessive, and the bass at times barely discernable. The statement of the magical second subject seemed far too aggressive from the piano, and the inner voices simply did not provide the clarity of rhythmic locomotion with which Schubert underpinned and energized it. This quintet is largely an intricate conversation between equal voices, but the cello needed to be heard more, and the bass to provide a much more audible, secure foundation. The viola adopted all too effectively the Cinderella epithet sometimes applied to this instrument, when in fact its part, and that of the cello, are undoubtedly written to be heard and appreciated.

The same frustrations dogged the following Andante where the dominance of the violin and piano continued. Since this work was written for a salon situation in the early nineteenth century, the use of a modern concert grand can put the pianist on the back foot from bar one. So it requires careful adjustment if the sound is not to be overly bright, and risk overshadowing the deceptively simple but powerful inner rhythms and melodic lines. Closing the piano lid would have helped, as would some preliminary sound tests in the auditorium. The exuberant Presto and delicate Trio that follow were better balanced and came into their own much more successfully.

In the next Andantino Theme and Variations, Schubert invites each player to caress and elaborate the wonderful Trout theme from his lied, which was a particular favourite of his patron Paumgartner. The violin gave a loving opening statement of the beautiful melody, though he was not given the support from the lower strings that could have lifted it to another plane. Unfortunately the busy and energetic variation that followed was launched from the piano at a level that smothered the rich and throaty counter-statement of the theme given to the bass, and in the following viola variation one again struggled to make out its theme through the volume of piano and violin. The cellist played the final variation very poetically, but needed more sympathetic support from the other players. My distinct impression of this movement was that there had been far too little concentration on establishing how each player was to act out their role within the ensemble as a whole, and how each role could be most musically enhanced by the supporting textures. The simple but exquisite theme is developed by Schubert in extraordinarily complex and subtle ways, yet it felt as though the ensemble was walking across a carpet of fantastic autumn colours without noticing what was underfoot.

In the straightforward and vigorous Allegro giusto Finale the balance was much better, though the piano was still often far too loud in forte passages. But the movement was played with a convincing gusto, and it was clear from the final applause that the audience had really appreciated the opportunity to hear a live performance of this much-loved work. It was good to know that the group would play the work again at St. Ninian’s Church in Karori two days later..

My colleague Rosemary Collier comments: From my seat three rows from the front downstairs, the imbalance was not so marked – there was more of  a salon-like distance between me and the performers, and it was probably an advantage not to be above the level of the piano.  Nevertheless, I did find that cello, bass and viola seemed to be somewhat in the background aurally, especially the latter two instruments.

Festival Singers and Cantoris – Choirs for all Seasons

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Festival Singers of Wellington and Cantoris Choir
Cloudburst – Celebrating the seasons

Musical Director: Brian O’Regan

Spring
Eric Whitacre – Alleluia
Brahms – Wie Lieblich sind deine wohnungen
John Tavener – The Lamb
John Rutter – For the Beauty of the Earth
Summer
King’s Singers –  I’m a train
Robert Applebaum – Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day
Moses Hogan – Elijah Rock
Morten Lauridsen – Sure on this Shining Night
Autumn
Joshua Shank  Autumn
Eric Whitacre – Cloudburst
Winter
Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Cloud Capp’d Towers
R. Thompson – Stopping by woods on a snowy evening
Brahms – Waldesnacht
Chris Artley – O Magnum Mysterium 

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Friday, 1st November 2013

This concert was a joint performance between Cantoris Choir and Festival Singers of Wellington, both of whom are directed by Brian O’Regan. The programme was built around Eric Whitacre’s iconic work “Cloudburst” as part of a journey through the seasons that featured choral works from different ages and genres.

Opening the evening was Moses Hogan’s Elijah Rock, a riveting Negro spiritual that ventures almost into rap territory. It was an ambitious first choice, but was carried off with total panache and technical command by the combined choirs, who immediately engaged the audience with their enthusiasm and polish. The following Cloud Capp’d Towers of Ralph Vaughan Williams was a total stylistic contrast, beautifully rendered, again by the joint choirs. How canny of Brian O’Regan to choose this pair of opening numbers– two genres that are just about as far apart as can be, yet each finishing on the note of meeting one’s Maker. In the spiritual the singers literally hurtle through the Pearly Gates, shouting “Comin’ up Lawdy, I’m comin’ up Lord”, while in the latter the voices fade away into nothingness as “our little life is rounded with a sleep”. Masterful programming………

The Festival Singers then presented a bracket of three numbers by Rutter, Artley and Lauridsen. With loving phrasing, dynamics, and exemplary balance between the voices, they beautifully conveyed the great mystery of the manger scene and a sense of wonder at the beauties of earth and sky. This theme was rounded out by a combined choir rendition of Brahms’ – Waldesnacht (Woodland night), regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Romantic choral repertoire. Its nuances were sympathetically delivered to convey the profound sense of peace and tranquility that Nature can provide as a balm for weary limbs exhausted by the “insane anguish” of everyday life.

Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst was the central piece in the programme, and rightly so. It involved both choirs, piano, percussion band, and the seven players of the Tinakori Hand Bell Choir. This is an exciting work which uses a wide variety of vocal and instrumental effects to convey all the sound sensations experienced in a cloudburst– everything from the whispering pitter-patter of the first gentle raindrops to the auditory assault of a torrential downpour, complete with thunder from the band. The vocal writing is very percussive and instrumental in places, and the singers gave it their all to great effect. They formed an excellent ensemble with the instrumentalists that resulted in a highly evocative performance.

The combined male voices next presented R.Thompson’s setting of Robert Frost’s 1922 poem Stopping by woods on a snowy evening. The pianist, Jonathan Berkhan, and choristers together captured most evocatively its magical imagery of the rider stopping between the woods and a frozen lake on the darkest evening of the year. The expressive harmonies were beautifully balanced, and the diction quite the clearest and cleanest of the entire evening. Bravo gentlemen!

Joshua Shank’s Autumn, sung by the combined choirs,  explores a wonderful metaphor where the falling leaves of autumn represent that final descent we all must make. The singers made the most of the expressive dissonances and showed beautiful control, especially in the final lines And yet there is One/ Who holds this falling/ in his hands/ With infinite softness.

 The jaunty King’s Singers’ number I’m a train was a dramatic contrast, with its characteristic clever vocal effects, rhythms and wordless train soundtrack puffing energetically along. The singers were obviously having a ball, and demonstrated yet again their great versatility in switching between widely different genres.

Cantoris presented the next two numbers by Applebaum and Tavener. The setting of Shakespeare’s 18th sonnet eschews any hint of the saccharine, reflecting rather the devastation and heartache of Applebaum who wrote it to mark his daughter’s untimely death. The sometimes raw a cappella harmonies express the dark side of this wonderful poem, and they were movingly rendered by the singers. Tavener’s work was given an equally beautiful reading which tellingly captured the wide-eyed delight of a child talking to the lamb in its Softest clothing, woolly, bright.

The choirs combined again for the final two numbers, the first being Brahms’ How lovely are thy dwelling places from his German Requiem. This was sung with a piano reduction for accompaniment, a format I had never heard before. The singing was entirely competent, but the amputation of the orchestra had a devastating effect on the performance. Never can it be said that Brahms was here composing a vocal work with orchestral accompaniment. The two elements are never conceived separately, but are part of an intimate relationship which can no more be split asunder than can a pair of dancers. I believe that the stature of this masterful work must be respected and its exquisite music left intact, even at the cost of its being omitted from programmes where an orchestra is not available.

Eric Whitacre’s Alleluia is a far cry from the usual finale romp that this title often suggests. It is rather a subdued, contemplative work set for choir with male and female soloists. Those voices floated poetically through the choristers who in turn beautifully shaped their own interweaving melodies. The whole effect was one of peace and calm, and serene conclusion.

Festival Singers and Cantoris  are exceptionally fortunate to have found a director of Brian O’Regan’s experience and competence. He produced an exemplary concert that gave obvious pleasure to singers and audience alike, and I trust that Wellington can look forward to plenty more in the future.

 

Owen Moriarty – challenging but rewarding guitar recital

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Owen Moriarty solo guitar recital
St. Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series

Carlos Rivera Whirler of the Dance(1970)
Schubert Lob der Thranen arr. Johann Kaspar Mertz (1797-1828)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Nocturnal Op.70
Manuel Ponce (1882-1948) Sonatina Meridional

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 30th October 2013.

This was a rare and welcome opportunity to hear classical guitarist Owen Moriarty in solo performance, as the majority of his Wellington concert appearances are in ensembles. To open the programme he chose two movements from Rivera’s suite Whirler of the Dance. The initial Evocation is a “solemn, personal prayer” (Rivera) whose ambience Moriarty expressed in a reverential and contemplative mood. The following Dance is a complete change, being based on vigorous African dance rhythms, and using tense contrasts between Pizzicato and Ordinario playing. Moriarty did justice to the whole gamut of expression embodied in the two selected movements, but they were not particularly easy listening. Their structure, especially that of the Evocation, was not easy to grasp, and at first listening their wandering tonalities never seemed to be quite adequately established.

The second item was a Schubert song Lob der Thranen (In Praise of Tears) arranged by Mertz, a C19th guitarist and composer.  Its melancholy mood, artistic melodic writing and subtle chromaticism were given a beautifully poetic reading, with a real sense of authenticity. This was enhanced by the smaller period guitar that Moriarty used for this number – apparently a fortuitous discovery in Alistair’s Music in Upper Cuba St!

2013 is the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, and the next item was his Nocturnal Op.70, the only work he wrote for the instrument, and now a bulwark of the classical guitar repertoire. It comprises eight short movements in which Britten uses as the main theme Dowland’s song “Come, heavy Sleep”. Each is a variation which develops a unique character, representing a different phase of sleep. It is a very evocative work which tellingly expresses the elusive and ambiguous sensations of human sleep – the melodies often incomplete, the tonalities barely defined, often with wide contrasts from one mood to the next. This is not a work that the listener can readily “grasp” as a musical experience, and that is doubtless its genius, given the theme and nature of its founding document.

The final work was Manuel Ponce’s Sonatina Meridional, written at the prompting of his friend Andres Segovia. It embodies a variety of Spanish idioms in the composer’s characteristic way, and comprises three movements: Campo (country), Copla (a popular Spanish song) and Fiesta (festival or party). The idioms were a little more accessible and the tonalities more familiar than in the other modern works played earlier: its two outer movements are vigorous and energetic, the central one a gentle contrast, with the character of each being clearly captured in this performance.

Moriarty gave some relaxed and interesting commentary about the works he had chosen, their context and background, and made one particularly interesting observation – that he preferred to avoid playing works that others frequently performed. It’s not hard to see why a creative and innovative musician like Owen Moriarty might feel this way, but the performer is only half the equation in a concert. Particularly in solo recitals, there needs to develop a close rapport between audience and player which is key to an enjoyable musical experience. That can be promoted by apposite commentary, but of equal importance is the programme selection. It is not an accident that even the most avant garde concerts often include at least one familiar and well loved work.

Wellington has enjoyed all too few guitar concerts till recent times, and players like Owen Moriarty and his various ensemble groups have done wonders in redressing the imbalance. But there is still a way to go in attracting a healthy following, and there is no shame in re-playing some of the great classics that most educated listeners would recognize. The aim of music making is surely to broaden the experience of listeners by leading them to discover a new area of musical enjoyment, but I suspect the content of this recital was somewhat uncompromising for many. The classical guitar repertoire is so rich that it deserves wider acceptance, and a little give-and-take in the selection of works can only assist that process.

That said, it was a privilege to be at this recital, and to have one’s mind prised open by the musicianship and technical command that Owen Moriarty brings to all his work. I hope there will be more opportunities in future to hear him in solo mode.

NZSO’s “Tall Tales and Tangos” musically resplendent but dramatically inert

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New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:

Tall Tales and Tangos

Tchaikovsky:  Selections from The Nutcracker
David Farquhar: Suite from Ring Round the Moon
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf

Tecwyn Evans, conductor
Anton Oliver, narrator
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Sat.12th October 2013 

This was a matinee concert devised specifically for children, and it was great to see so many of them at this well attended event. Rugby legend and classical music enthusiast Anton Oliver introduced the programme, giving a particularly warm welcome to the under-tens with his assurance that ”this concert is for you”.

The orchestra comprised some fifty players, probably a bit of a squeeze in many theatre pits, but eminently suited to the larger Fowler Centre for the scale of works selected. Tecwyn Evans exploited the size of this ensemble to wonderful musical effect, and elicited clean, clear playing of great finesse and warmth.

The Nutcracker highlights opened with magical delicacy from the strings, where every note of the chattering rhythms was crystal clear. This precision and clarity typified the work, which Tecwyn Evans proceeded to build with wonderful control: there was an ethereal lightness of touch for the Sugar Plum Fairy; a colourful, galloping Trepak yet clean and never rambunctious; veiled evocative suggestiveness in the Arabian Dance; and lively, gracious waltz music that built to a surging conclusion while never being overplayed. It was a most satisfying musical experience which maximized the rich contrasts and masterful orchestration of Tchaikovsky’s writing.

For a watching youngster, however, hearing it perhaps for the first time, it represented a sadly lost opportunity. Nobody explained to the young listeners that this was music composed for a company of ballet dancers. The movements were not identified in the programme notes, to provide guidance about the characters and settings. And despite the enormous talent that Wellington boasts in the dance world, there was no glittering sugar plum fairy seen shimmering to the ethereal music, no fiery jack-booted Cossack leaping across the stage, no veiled dancer insinuating her hips through the Pasha’s chamber. This claimed to be a concert for children, yet no effort had been made to provide a minimal connection between the notes and their intentions. The NZSO has done many “semi-staged” performances, there was plenty of spare room on stage with the smaller orchestra, yet sorely absent was the little lateral thinking and coordination with the dance fraternity that could have lifted a child’s experience from bewilderment to enchantment.

David Farquhar’s Ring Round the Moon suite is theatre music at its most beguiling, and it was a great choice for this programme. There is a freshness and transparency that permeates every dance and plants the epithet of “easy listening” firmly in the classical arena. Tecwyn Evans and the NZSO showed off the suite to great effect – they executed with wonderful clarity and drama the many tricky rhythms in Farquhar’s clever creation, and explored its wide range of dynamics and instrumental colour with vivacious enthusiasm. But again the music’s wonderful potential was hamstrung by the missing partner in the marriage – the dance – which could have brought its meaning and intentions so brilliantly to life. I could picture Sir Jon Trimmer and his dancer wife Jacqui stepping out with the suave Two Step, the steamy Tango, the seductive Waltzes to stunning effect at front-of-stage – but nobody had thought to invite them…………… another sadly lost opportunity for adults and youngsters alike.

Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf is a wonderful choice to introduce children to the realm of dramatic music and orchestral colour, where surely the great C19-20th Russian orchestrators must remain unchallenged. Tecwyn Evans and the NZSO gave a wonderful reading of the score which maximized the drama and highlighted its key moments with great clarity and panache. The joy of the light tripping strings was almost palpable as Peter bounded out the gate into the sunlit meadow in search of adventure; so was the menacing warning of the horns as the wolf circled under the cat and bird in the tree above. As the duck was consumed the dread oboe call wailed out across the auditorium with hideous finality, and the ferocious horns blasted forth with their fantastic dissonances as the wolf tried to wrest his tail from Peter’s noose. The final victory march was all it could have been to swell a child’s heart with pride at the hero’s triumph against all odds, and it capped off a superb performance from instrumental soloists and orchestra alike.

Despite that however, this work fell well short as a dramatic production for children. The tunes belonging to each character in the story were played one by one at the start, but the wind and brass players should have been brought to the front where small children could get a clear view of their instruments. Also, Prokofiev clearly considered that the narrator’s role was key to the work, and he rejected another writer’s text in favour of his own, remarking that “the balance between words and music in a work like this is very delicate..”. Anton Oliver was put on the back foot from the opening sentence, having been provided with a lapel mike that could not produce adequate speech clarity even for listeners very familiar with the work, let alone youngsters coming to the story for the first time. What happened here to Public Address Systems 101 and the broadcaster’s obligatory voice test?? Also, the boy hero’s magical story calls for a lot more than a straightforward recital of the text – its drama was left crying out for the gestures, voice production and body language of a seasoned actor with the consummate artistry of someone like Wellington’s Tim Spite. While Oliver is doubtless a wonderful choice to pull in the reluctant Southern Man to NZSO concerts in Southland, he was placed in a most uncomfortable position for a children’s concert in the urban capital.

This was an audience liberally endowed with tiny tots in glittering tutus and sparkly shoes who deserved to be transported into that world where music, drama and dance make the magical connections that can capture a child’s loyalty for life. But the outstanding performance from Evans and the NZSO could not provide this experience unaided; it was up to the artistic management to create the other half of the equation.

 

Remembering Katherine Mansfield 125 years on

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MUSIC AND FRIENDSHIP

Katherine Mansfield and Arnold Trowell

A concert to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Katherine Mansfield’s birth

Music by Dvořák, Popper, Goltermann, Trowell and Boëllmann

Martin Griffiths (‘cello) / Eleanor Carter (piano) / Fiona Oliver (speaker)

Saint John’s in the City

Te Aro, Wellington

Friday 11th October 2013

Music and Friendship was a commemoration of the 125th anniversary of author Katherine Mansfield’s birth, an evening of music and recitation, held at St.John’s Church in Wellington Central. Welcoming people to the event was Marion Townend, whose obviously sterling efforts regarding the funding, organization and promotion of the concert had brought it all about. Joining her in the venture were two talented musicians, Martin Griffiths (cello) and Eleanor Carter (piano), along with Alexander Turnbull Library curator Fiona Oliver, who read exerpts from Mansfield’s letters, journals and stories.  As Mansfield was also a keen amateur musician, it seemed appropriate to intermingle music and words by way of commemorating the anniversary.

Further linking Mansfield with music was her friendship with members of the Trowell family, prominent in Wellington music circles at the time of the author’s early years – as seemed to be the norm with Mansfield’s interactions with people in general, the picture is a complex one. Mansfield’s ‘cello teacher in Wellington was Thomas Trowell, whose sons, Arnold and Garnet, the impressionable and impulsive Katherine became variously involved with. Arnold, the younger son, left New Zealand when aged sixteen, becoming a successful ‘cellist and teacher in Europe – he seems to have rejected all of Katherine’s advances towards him, eventually marrying someone else.

On first going to London Katherine became involved with Arnold’s elder brother Garnet Trowell, and the pair planned to marry, though parental opposition helped put a stop to their plans, despite Katherine becoming pregnant – an attempt by Katherine to “normalize” her pregnant state by marrying someone else also failed the last minute, and Garnet by this time had rejected her (as a commentator remarked, “Never trust a man whose name resembles a bejewelled garden utensil”)!

A recently-discovered story by Mansfield, “A Little Episode” actually mirrors the tragic triangle Mansfield had constructed around herself at the time, Garnet Trowell characterized as “Jacques St.Pierre”, a musician with “a pouting, eager mouth”, and herself as “Yvonne”, self-characterised as “a bruised, trembling soul”. At this point I forget who first observed that “truth is stranger than fiction”, but the lives of people such as Mansfield certainly bear this observation out.

Anyway, to the concert! The music consisted of pieces that either Mansfield herself or Arnold Trowell had played at various times. Trowell himself built up an enviable reputation in Europe as a performer, his ‘cello-playing having been described by one critic as comparable “with the greatest virtuosos of the present time”. Consequently some of his own music makes exacting demands upon the soloist, evidenced by the occasional rawness of the ‘cello-playing in places tonight,  such as throughout the difficult Waltz-Scherzo – which, incidentally, sported the impressive cataloguing legend Op.52 No.1.

Beside Trowell’s music there were pieces by other composers – first of the musical contributions to the program was Léon Boëllmann’s Variations Symphoniques Op.23, a rhapsodic work with some lovely Elgarian-like sequences and a juicily Edwardian “theme”, though with some tiresome “standard-variation” note-spinning passages as well, and plenty of tremolando passages for the pianist (who coped splendidly, incidentally)! There was a polka by a Georg Goltermann, which seemed to try and be a polonaise for most of the time, and then Dvořák’s haunting Silent Woods, the score of which was given to Mansfield as a present by a member of the Trowell family.

Another piece was by David Popper, one with the Schumannesque title “Warum?”, a piece that Mansfield had played while studying at Queen’s College, London in 1904. Difficult for the ‘cellist at the outset, with the music in the higher reaches of the instrument, the piece”settles down” and provides the player with some lovely, flowing runs, and a beautiful harmonic note at the end, which Martin Griffiths played to perfection. In places, as with Trowell’s Op.20 Barcarolle, the piano part sounded more interesting than did the ‘cello writing – and in the latter work Eleanor Carter readily demonstrated her fluency and poetic touch at the keyboard, for our delight.

The pair finished the musical part of the evening on a high note, with what I presumed to be a relatively early work by Trowell, his Op.3 No.2 Le Rappel des Oiseaux – a piece framed by exciting and restless molto-perpetuo writing underlined by constant piano tremolandi, with a salon-like middle section complete with sentimental melody – in places I thought of Rimsky-Korsakov, which probably tells the reader more about me than about the piece!  The duo made a great fist of it, bringing out plenty of colour, energy and, in places, sentiment.

In between these glimpses of a musical world there were readings which focused and intensified the character of the evening’s subject – frequently music was mentioned or characterized, either by the writer herself or by those writing about her, as in an obituary called “Broken Strings” written by a friend, Millie Parker, in 1923, and which was read by Fiona Oliver.We got an exerpt from an early novel, “Juliet”, written when eighteen, and on which Mansfield herself scribbled when twenty, “foolish child”!

Some journal entries, made in 1907, vividly described her understanding of and love for music, a well as describing her disengagement from Arnold Trowell and her passion for the voice of a singer she had recently heard. Finally, we heard “Mr Peacock’s Day” a story from 1917, in which Mansfield mercilessly lampooned her music-teacher husband George Bowden, the scenario, complete with disapproving wife, producing a kind of paean to the “marry in haste, repent at leisure” principle. The story deliciously exposes the fragile vanities and insecurities of a music teacher who considers himself a success from a society point of view and yet seems out-of-sorts with his wife.

Fiona Oliver’s readings drew us nicely into this unique and idiosyncratic world of a great and complex creative spirit, amply colored and flavored by the musical performances. Though I felt the presentation probably needed a theatre rather than a church, to have a more “focused” impact, the evening’s happenings made a warm-hearted and occasionally piquant tribute to Mansfield’s memory on her anniversary.